Cope With Our Lives
by musicforlife101
Summary: John goes away on holiday and Sherlock self-destructs. John helps him pick up the pieces. Includes story-time with Mycroft! Rating for safety.
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Hello there! So this is my first Sherlock fic, it came to me in the car and I ran out, got a notebook and wrote it all down in like a day. Then I went back and made the middle part better. The whole story is completed so updates will be daily (except today, where there will be two chapters), despite classes starting again. So, two things before we start.

1. John's girlfriend is named Mary because of Mary from the books and because I wanted to remove this from the timeline. Though in my head it's kind of in those couple of months during _Scandal in Belgravia_. But it's very standalone.

2. The title of this comes from the Starsailor song "Some of Us". The chorus I think is very fitting for Sherlock. Now, on to the prologue.

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><p>"You remember that Mary and I are going to Brighton this week for a holiday, right, Sherlock?" John asked concernedly as he checked the zip on his suitcase one last time.<p>

"Yes, John. You've been going on about it for over a week. I will be fine. Go on and enjoy your holiday," Sherlock replied, somewhat testily, from his lounging position on the couch. His shockingly pale eyes were closed, blocking out the sight of his best and only friend and companion leaving, if only for a week.

John nodded blandly, though he knew his friend couldn't see him. "Right then. See you on Friday." Then the former soldier gave an aborted wave at the consulting detective before walking out the door with his suitcase and down the stairs to the waiting cab. Once the door to the flat had closed and the sound of sure footsteps could be heard on the stairs, Sherlock's eyes popped open and stared at the woodwork separating him from his partner, colleague, flatmate, companion, friend, connection to reality. Sighing and closing his eyes again, Sherlock rolled to face the back of the couch, pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his dressing gown around himself.

It was going to be a bad night. And a long week. A very boring, bad, long week.

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><p>Thanks for reading! Ch 1 is up! Please leave me a review if you feel so inclined!<p> 


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Two chapters today because they're short. Warning: This story does contain references to drug use, but none of is it explicit. And underage smoking. Though none of that in this chapter yet.

Also, **Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters or the show, and sadly I don't own Martin Freeman or Benedict Cumberbatch either, but they'd make a great late Christmas present =]

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><p>Brighton<p>

Monday Afternoon

_Bee-beep_. John walked into the sitting room of his and Mary's suite in his dressing gown and picked up his beeping cell phone from the coffee table. Mary followed him out in her own dressing gown and sat down on the sofa, flicking on the telly and putting the volume on low. John simply stood in the middle of the room, looking at his phone.

There were two text messages, one voicemail and four missed calls. All from Mycroft Holmes. He opened the texts first.

Call me immediately.

Mycroft Holmes

And the next message.

Call me immediately after you've listened to your voicemail.

Mycroft Holmes

John furrowed his eyebrows and dialed his voicemail. After the recording informed him of the date, time and sender of the message, Mycroft's voice filled his ear, oddly frantic and panicked. In contrast with his usual calm, it sounded so wrong.

"Dr. Watson, this is Mycroft Holmes." Always so proper, even as the panic made his voice thin and pale. "It's um…Well this is…It's about Sherlock." There was a slight crack of his voice on the name, almost imperceptible, but he'd spent enough time around the Holmes brothers to notice the subtlety. "He's missing and I can't find him." He said it like it was his fault Sherlock had gone off grid. "Call me at once, Dr. Watson. _He needs you_."

Mary was looking up at him from the sofa with too knowing eyes. His face must have given him away. It always did. "What is it?" she asked, knowing it was something.

"Sherlock's brother, Mycroft, called. But it's nothing…nothing," he added on distractedly.

"Your mouth says it's nothing, but your eyes are telling a different story. What's wrong with Sherlock?"

John shook his head slightly. "No, it's our holiday. I'm sure Mycroft is just overreacting."

"You don't believe that," Mary replied with a knowing smirk. "Stop worrying about me. I'll be fine. I know you'll always go when he needs you, whether it's to send a text, make tea or bring him back to Earth. Sherlock Holmes is the most important person in your life. I know that. No hard feelings." Mary cupped one side of John's face in her hand and smiled a knowing little smile that was not sad or happy or smug. It simple said, 'I saw this coming and I've been expecting this for a while.' "Go. You're supposed to be out there with him."

John nodded sharply, reining himself in, before jumping up to get dressed and throw a few things into his bag. He was out the door within ten minutes, saying, "Thank you, Mary," very sincerely before he closed the door and hailed a taxi to the train station. The moment he was in a compartment on the train, he was on the phone with the older Holmes brother.

"Mycroft Holmes," he answered, sounding distracted.

"It's John Watson."

"Oh Doctor, thank Heavens you called. Sherlock has been missing for three days. He left his phone on his desk, is out of range of all security cameras and is not hiding in any of the places I have found him before."

"Before?" John asked, voice trembling slightly because he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Yes. He has decided to run away in the past. I think he has fallen off the wagon…again." John's eyes widened and he tried not to audibly react. "Dr. Watson, I would be most obliged if you were to meet me at your flat on Baker Street as soon as your train arrives from Brighton."

"Of course," John replied immediately. The phone clicked off in his ear and he didn't move for at least five minutes.

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><p>London – 221B Baker Street<p>

Monday Night

"Mycroft?" John called as he opened the door to his and Sherlock's flat.

"I am here, Dr. Watson," the other man replied from Sherlock's chair by the fireplace. John's brain screamed that it was the wrong Holmes sitting there, but he ignored it in favor of finding the right one. "Sit. We must discuss our plan of action for finding my brother." Nodding, the doctor sat in his armchair and dropped his bag to the floor beside him.

"When you say you think he's fallen off the wagon again…" John began before Mycroft interrupted, having deduced the question already.

"I trust you know about the drugs."

"That's all I know. Sherlock doesn't like to divulge details. He told Lestrade he was clean and I don't know anything more than that," John explained.

"Then I suppose I shall have to tell you the story," Mycroft replied.

Fidgeting with the sleeve of his jumper, John cut in, "I wouldn't want to violate his privacy." Honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Privacy is of little importance at this juncture. If we do not act quickly, I doubt there will be much left of him to care." John still didn't want to know, but he was quickly becoming aware that this wasn't about what he wanted or what Sherlock wanted. It was about the fact that his best friend needed him and that was not something he took lightly.

Steeling himself as best he could, John nodded and Mycroft began. "Try to imagine a fifteen-year-old Sherlock." And John did. "He was shorter than he is now, but just as lanky, like a puppy not quite grown into its limbs. He was not as thin and he had the look of a growing boy who ate three square meals a day." And the picture slowly assembled itself in John's mind. He could see a gangly, but healthy, kid with a dark mop of curls, shockingly bright eyes and only slightly less sharp cheekbones wearing his school uniform and an infuriatingly familiar smirk…

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><p>Thanks for reading!<p> 


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Alright, now on to the good stuff! At least in my opinion. This is chapter is kind of the whole image that this fic was born from, although it was much shorter and less detailed in my original draft. So, for me, the first parts were just to get John here and have him listen to Mycroft telling the story of Sherlock's struggles with addiction (hence the throwaway character of Mary - who was actually Sarah in my original draft as well).

On with the fic!

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><p>Just from Mycroft's words, John could see him…<p>

Fifteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes sat sulkily in his seat in the cafeteria at Harrow. His uniform hung on his overly lanky frame as he reluctantly ate his lunch. It was an eccentricity (as Mummy had called it) that he had picked up recently. Not eating, that is. Eating slowed him down when he was thinking, but he didn't have to think all that much here. So far, the school's attempts to challenge and intrigue him had been relatively pitiful, if better than his last school.

"Hey freak," another boy greeted as he sat down beside Sherlock. The nickname wasn't new by any means, but he tried to remain impassive. "You want to come round ours tonight?"

"You have never shown any prior interest in my company. What makes tonight different?"

"Got something that might interest you. Maybe get you to lighten up a bit." Sherlock nodded. He would go, if only to prove his own impassivity at whatever they had planned for him.

That evening, Sherlock did go round to Nick's and the first thing he noticed was the smoky room. Cigarettes, not marijuana, he deduced in his head as he entered. "You ever smoked, Holmes?" Nick asked. He shook his head in the negative. Nick passed him a lit cigarette and he took it, lightly pinching the tips of his forefinger and thumb. He brought the fag to his lips and took a shallow drag, coughing only slightly when he pulled it away. The other boys seemed impressed by his relative lack of reaction to his first cigarette. He finished the already half-burnt fag relatively quickly and lit another a few minutes later. The other boys in Nick and Brad's room were talking and laughing. Sherlock was paying attention, cataloguing their conversation and body language, but not participating.

Sherlock had assumed that one night, proving to Nick and his cronies that he was not easily shaken, would be it. But his addictive personality had latched on like a leech and he went from having smoked once to being a smoker. Mummy wouldn't be pleased, but Mycroft wasn't likely to tell her. Mycroft knew, though. He had known since his visit two weeks after the initial incident. His little brother's clothes had smelled faintly of smoke and there was tobacco on the sole of his shoe. It was an easy deduction, really. Mycroft didn't comment, only gave Sherlock and stern look and let him sort it out.

Except Sherlock had no intention, need or chance of sorting it out on his own. While it seems a mild addiction in comparison with what else was out there, it was an addiction nonetheless.

It was several years before anything else out of the ordinary happened. Mostly, school was composed of Sherlock outsmarting his teachers, smoking, deducing things about his classmates and being alternately ignored and ostracized by said classmates. He graduated and went off to uni at Oxford where things were much the same for a couple of years.

After returning from Christmas break during his last year at uni, Sherlock was bored. Not just normal bored, but out of his mind bored and willing to do anything to remedy that. So he went to explore people and their habits in case anything relevant to his deductions presented itself. Instead of finding something interesting about people, Sherlock found cocaine. It didn't take him long to calculate that a 7% solution would be enough to alleviate his boredom, but not enough to overdose. And his addictive personality reared its ugly head once again.

Soon he was cutting class and shooting up more often than he attended. His grades were still above passing, well above passing, but Mycroft was worried. He attempted to intervene.

"Hello Mycroft," the younger Holmes greeted as his brother entered his dormitory.

"Sherlock," he nodded. "Roll up your sleeves." Sighing because it was pointless to argue when Mycroft obviously knew, Sherlock complied grumpily. The grey dress shirt slowly climbed his slim arms to reveal track marks of varying ages. A cursory inspection also showed dilated pupils, sharper cheekbones and very loose fitting clothes. "Have you been spending you monthly allowance on cocaine instead of food, Sherlock?"

The younger brother shrugged and rolled his sleeves back down. "I get bored here," he said in response.

"Then get a hobby or a job. You do not start taking drugs because you're bored." Sherlock looked unperturbed. Sighing, Mycroft said, "I'm going to be forced to tell Mummy and she will cut you off and put you on school meals only." Then he left.

Two weeks later, Sherlock was nowhere to be found. Mummy Holmes had cut him off and he'd run away a week later. Mycroft knows only the little that Sherlock has shared about that time in his life, not where he was or how he got his next fix or what he did once he wasn't bored anymore, but John can picture it clearly. He can see Sherlock, pupils blown wide and taking in every movement, standing on the pavement somewhere, fingers pinching lightly at the end of a fag as he inhaled before dropping it to his side and holding it there as he flicked ashes away with casual grace.

What Mycroft knew quite a lot about was the day, three weeks later, that he found his wayward brother. Sherlock was skin and bones, shivering as he went through the early stages of withdrawal, hiding in a Tube station. Mycroft cradled his shockingly light little brother in his arms and carried him out to the car. The driver took them to one of the best rehab facilities in the country and he was admitted immediately.

It was a week before Sherlock was well enough to have visitors. Mycroft came in and Sherlock was sitting up slightly in bed, eating applesauce. "You missed your final exams."

"I am aware."

The nonchalance in his voice irked Mycroft, but he would never let Sherlock know that. "I explained to your professors that you had unexpectedly taken ill and wouldn't be well until after graduation. They agreed to calculate and submit your grades without you taking the exams. You've passed, barely." Sherlock only nodded. "Get well." He nodded again and turned back to the telly. Three days passed before Mycroft returned.

"Your graduation was today," Mycroft said as he entered the room.

"Oh really? I wasn't aware," Sherlock replied sarcastically, still staring glassily at the telly.

Mycroft's almost imperceptible sigh was the only sign of irritation. "I would have thought you'd want to go."

"And what on Earth would make you think that?" It wasn't a question, not really. He didn't expect an answer, nor did he want one. He just stared at whatever crap show was on the telly. Sitting with his long, too thin legs folded beneath him and sipping on a box of chocolate milk with a straw, he looked impossibly young – younger than he'd looked in a dozen years, at least.

It was over a year that Sherlock stayed clean after that initial bout of rehab. He spent all winter bored and smoking, which worried Mycroft much less. Though the older Holmes didn't say much about this period of relative calm, John could imagine his best friend standing on the immaculate – if snow covered – grounds of the Holmes estate, smoking and shivering in the snow, the skin of his face almost translucent in the cold.

The following August, a particularly boring month by Sherlock's measure, he fell off the wagon. He had been so bored and of course Mycroft had noticed and Sherlock had run away again. This time Mycroft found him two weeks later in and underground car park. Another stint in rehab. He didn't even last a year clean. Mycroft found him, two weeks after he'd run away again, in a bus terminal. Sherlock landed himself in a longer stint in rehab that time. Three years before he met John, he got bored, went back to cocaine and disappeared. But Mycroft wasn't fast enough and Lestrade and Co. found him in an abandoned warehouse during a sweep of the area for possible witnesses to a murder.

Sherlock solved the case for them during the time it took Mycroft to get across London to pick him up. When he got out of rehab, Lestrade called him with a really interesting case and he hadn't touched cocaine since then. It took him another two and a half years to quit smoking because he realized that smoking just added to the list of reasons he couldn't find a flatmate. And then he met John and things had started looking up.

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><p>Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you would like. I'd love to read your feedback.<p> 


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Sorry this is late tonight; I was actually reading for class like the good student I'm pretending to be. Anyway, this is the last properly sized chapter. Just a short epilogue afterward and then it's done.

I just want to take a moment before the end to thank everyone who has been reading this story and adding it to their alerts and favoriting it. It really means a lot to me that you've enjoyed and taken an interest in a story I whipped out in an evening when I was at my mom's house.

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><p>John – who had been literally on the edge of his seat for the entire story – exhaled audibly and leaned back into his armchair. This was certainly more than he had expected, but somehow also exactly what he had expected. "He has never gone so completely off grid before. Usually, I have at least some sort of lead."<p>

Letting out another breath, John stood up and said, "Well, then we need to find a lead. What have you got?"

"You know him better than I do."

"You're his brother!"

"That doesn't matter. You know him better. Sherlock trusts you. You know his habits. I don't. Not anymore."

Nodding, the doctor stood and walked to his flatmate's bedroom. Mycroft followed and watched as John looked through Sherlock's clothes. "There's one pair of warm, but loose trousers and a jumper missing, but his coat is still here. It's springtime, but the nights are still cold, so he doesn't plan on spending nights outside. Which means he must have somewhere inside to sleep."

"Excellent deduction," Mycroft said. "Sherlock would be proud."

Moving back out into the sitting room, John continued, "The skull is here, but my cane is _not_ here. Why would he take my cane? What use could he have for it?"

Then Mycroft understood. "Perhaps there is a sentimental rather than utilitarian reason for Sherlock taking it." John snorted in disbelief, but couldn't come up with a better idea himself. Of course, sentimental or not, neither of them had a clue as to where that led them. Sherlock was only slightly less lost than before, but they were no closer to actually finding him.

By Thursday, John was certain he had developed an ulcer from worry. Also he was starting to understand why Sherlock had taken to shooting the walls when there were no cases. He had just found the missing piece of the puzzle, but it didn't occur to him that he had until Friday morning over his cup of tea.

"Cases!" Of course he would go somewhere that reminded him of the cases they had worked together. And then John was off, out the door, down the stairs and into the first cab he could find. It had already been a week, there was no time to lose.

When the cab pulled up to the Lauriston Gardens house, John jumped out, paid the cabbie and rushed for the door. It had been so obvious! A Study in Pink (as he'd so cheerfully called the case on his blog) had been their first case and the only one where he'd still needed his cane. And the crime scene was an abandoned house. How many more clues did he need?

Running up the stairs, pondering his own ignorance and obliviousness, John nearly missed the step to the top landing. Once he'd gotten his feet planted, he saw the door in front of him was closed. He tried the knob and it turned, so he pushed, but nothing moved. 'The cane, of course!' said the voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like Sherlock.

"Sherlock! If you don't open this door I'm going to kick it in." Silence. "One." Nothing. "Two." Still nothing. "Three." Nothing at all. In one swift movement, John kicked in the door and stepped into the room. The cane (which had been propping the door shut like he thought) had been flung against the wall and huddled in the corner was the barely conscious form of his friend.

He was thin, too thin. The once elegantly angular features of his face were now gaunt with malnutrition. The sharpness of his cheekbones was almost startling, as was the paleness of his skin. His eyes were sunken and mostly closed. It hurt John to see Sherlock this way, looking so upsettingly like the images Mycroft's story had conjured up.

After checking the detective's breathing, John sent a text to the older Holmes with the address and a curt description of his brother's condition. Mycroft would send a car, or come himself. Sighing, John walked back to Sherlock's side and lightly pushed back an errant curl. The other man sighed peacefully and his eyelids fluttered.

"John," he called weakly.

"I'm here, Sherlock."

" 'm sorry."

John tried not to look around and see the syringes and empty baggies lying on the floor around him. "It's okay. We're going home now." Not waiting for a reply that likely wouldn't come, John wrapped one strong arm around his friend's upper back and the other hooked under his knees. Then he stood, taking a moment to find his balance, as the precious cargo in his arms was not as heavy as he'd been expecting.

When was the last time Sherlock ate? Most likely not at all this week and John had only been able to force him to eat a bit of toast and tea the week before. So it must have been over two weeks since he'd had a proper meal. No wonder he was so light. John curled the man in his arms protectively closer to his chest, to which Sherlock responded by draping his long arms around John's shoulders, dripping his head into the warm space where the doctor's shoulder and neck met, and promptly losing his tenuous grip on consciousness. Sighing once more, John began to slowly make his way down the stairs and out to the black sedan that was waiting beside Mycroft Holmes.

"Did he…Is he going…" the older brother tried to sputter. John leveled a calm but fierce gaze at him as he slid the detective into the backseat and crawled in after him. Mycroft immediately got into the car and they were speeding off.

When the car stopped, they were parked at the emergency entrance to a rehab facility. Not the one Sherlock had always been treated at in the past, but a new one selected by Mycroft because the head doctor had gone to medical school with John. A couple of orderlies had come out with a stretcher and were opening the door to carefully place Sherlock on it and take him inside. Apparently, Mycroft had already called and set everything up before John had found him so they would be prepared.

John sat and slept and ate in the waiting room for two days, until the worst of the detox was over. Then he sat by Sherlock's bedside all day and all night, waiting for him to wake up. When he finally did, those pale grey eyes popped open and roamed the room, startled and startlingly blue in the fluorescent lighting and lacking the spark of life and energy, until they landed on John. John's tired, war weary face, with its three day scruff and tear tracks.

"John," Sherlock tried to croak, but his voice wouldn't cooperate.

"Shh, shh. Here, drink slowly," John replied, handing his friend a cup of water with a bendy straw. He watched the younger man suck on the straw, his cheeks sucking in and bringing his cheekbones into even sharper relief, if that was possible. "Here, have some applesauce. Eat it slowly." Sherlock nodded and began taking very small bites. Once he'd finished the entire cup, he looked pointedly at his friend.

"I'm sorry, John."

"I know. We're going to have a serious discussion about your self-destructive habits when we get home. But for right now, you just need to get well again."

"When did you notice I was gone, John?"

The doctor didn't even bat an eyelash at the apparent non-sequitar. There was a thought process behind it, somewhere. "Mycroft called me on Monday and I came straight back to London."

"I'm so sorry, John."

He could tell that Sherlock was starting to get distressed, so he affected his most soothing voice and said, "Shh, it's okay. Just go back to sleep." It was the combination of John's soothing voice in his ear and the gentle fingers running through his hair that finally lulled the detective into a restful sleep.

A week later, a very thin Sherlock Holmes was released into the care of Dr. John H. Watson. He was also supported under his right arm and around his waist by Dr. Watson as they walked to the car Mycroft had sent to take them back to Baker Street. When they were back in their flat, John cooked something for Sherlock to eat. He had no idea what it was and it didn't look appealing, but it tasted great and it filled him up so he ate the entire plateful without complaint. While he cleaned up, John pondered how often in the last week he'd heard his self-proclaimed sociopath best friend apologize to him, sincerely.

"Why do you keep telling me you're sorry?" he finally asked when they were sitting on the sofa and Sherlock was wrapped in a blanket to keep the chill away.

"Because I am."

"Yes, but why?"

Sherlock sighed. "It never bothered me that I was disappointing Mummy and Mycroft. But I didn't just disappoint you; I hurt you John and I am so sorry."

"Then why did you do it in the first place?"

He shrugged heavily under the blanket. "Same reason I always did."

"If you say you were bored, I'm going to hit you," John interrupted.

Chuckling, Sherlock replied, "No, not because I was bored." Sobering, he answered the original question. "I just wanted to escape and not be Sherlock Holmes for a while. Not be cold and unfeeling, but I didn't want to have feelings either. I didn't want to think or know things. I didn't want to miss you."

John gathered up Sherlock's still frail and bony torso and pulled him to lie comfortably on his chest, spreading the blanket over them both. "Well, I'm not going anywhere."

"What about Mary?" Sherlock asked, voice muffled by John's jumper.

"We broke up." The detective turned to look at him with curious eyes. "According to her, _you_ are the most important person in my life." Sherlock quirked a little smile and lie back down. They sat there comfortably enjoying each other's presence until it was time for lunch.

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><p>Thanks for reading! One short chapter to go! Please take the time to leave a little bit of feedback; I'd love to know what you think.<p> 


	5. Epilogue

**A/N:** Hey there, here's the last chapter of the story. A short little epilogue. As soon as I get them finished (classes get in the way) I'm going to be publishing a post-Reichenbach fic and a boarding school AU. Two lovely, well-used tropes that I've been fond of recently.

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><p>Six weeks later, Sherlock had made an almost full recovery. He was still much too thin for John's liking, but he was eating consistently and slowly putting on weight. Mycroft only stopped by every third day now, but he still texted John for regular updates. Mary had dropped by to give John the things he'd left at the hotel when he'd rushed out. She wished him and Sherlock well and seemed to be keeping true to her word about no hard feelings. But as of late, Sherlock had started becoming increasingly anxious and John was starting to worry.<p>

"What's wrong? You've been even more on edge than usual for days."

"It's nothing." A glare. "Fine, it's something, but –" Another glare. They'd had a talk about Sherlock being more open and honest to avoid repeat incidents. "Those feelings I said I didn't want to have and was trying to escape from are becoming stronger. I believe I am falling in love, with you John, if my deductions are correct." His eyes were closed, as if trying to protect himself from any negative reaction from John.

"What do you deduce from this then?" the doctor asked as he leant down over Sherlock in his armchair and kissed him softly on the lips. When John pulled back, Sherlock's eyes were wide, searching, confused. "I love you, too, so don't ever scare me like that again." Sherlock nodded and was rewarded with a quick peck on the lips. "Now sit here and I'll get us some tea and biscuits."

Over the next couple of months, Sherlock made a full recovery and put on all the weight he had lost. John moved out of the bedroom upstairs and into Sherlock's room where he learned very quickly that those lanky limbs were designed to wrap around him and keep him in 'proper snuggling position' all night long. Who knew, right?

Thus Sherlock Holmes became addicted to something new: John Watson.

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><p>There it is, a bit of a cheesy ending, but I can never help myself in that respect. I hope you enjoyed the story and thanks for sticking around and reading it!<p> 


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